Daddy Dearest

Chapter Thirty-Five

Alex

I put my arm around Melody and led her to the school parking lot with Noriko following closely behind us. People looked at us with curiosity, while I wondered which one of them could be the culprit.

Enough was enough. Melody was constantly terrified. She'd confessed to having nightmares nightly of someone chasing her and trying to kill her. I'd taken to sneaking into her house at night and sleeping in her bed because she couldn't sleep otherwise. I'm pretty sure Nancy knows since they have a very elaborate security system that Melody has to disengage whenever she lets me in.

We reached her house and Noriko checked the perimeter as well as inside the house before letting us in. Melody isn't even safe at her own home anymore since she found a bouquet of dead roses on her front door this morning with a note that said, "Your funeral is coming, bitch." The person was wearing a cloak and a mask.

Nancy had wanted Melody to stay home, but Mel said she'd go nuts if she did that, so she convinced her stepmother to allow her to go to school. I picked her up every morning, so I promised Nancy I'd stick to her like glue since I had three classes with her and Noriko would watch her the rest of the time.

The police hadn't really taken our reports seriously, dismissing them as pranks. She was a popular girl, they said, so of course, she had haters. No one had been hurt so far. Oh, except Melody when she was shoved down some steps a couple of months ago, but the police said no one saw it happen, so it could have been an accident.

Noriko said she was going to go into Nancy's office to review the day's security footage to see if she could find anything and asked me to look after Melody. As if I needed to be asked. I brought her to her room. I told her I was just going to go to the kitchen to get her water and a snack, but she begged me not to leave her.

"Plum, I'm not going far," I said, sweeping her hair out of her face. "The house is locked up like Fort Knox. I'm just going to the kitchen. Noriko is within shouting distance."

"Yeah, right. Like you've never seen any horror movies before. Noriko is probably already dead with her throat slit." She was hiding under her blanket, still in her school uniform. "Alex, the stalker was at the mall and saw what my dress looked like. That means he or she is following me around. I'm not safe anywhere."

I returned to her side on the bed and drew her into my arms. She was trembling. "Well, what do you want to do, Plum?"

She looked up at me, her gaze searching and anxious. "Maybe we can leave the country. Let's move to England. You have early admission to Cambridge. I can just finish my studies there, then try to get admitted using my family's connections or something."

I gripped her hands and brought them to my lips. "Are you serious? If you are, this is something we can do right away. I can call my solicitor and he can find us a flat in Cambridgeshire. Unless you want to stay with your aunt in Grantchester."

"I don't know." She burst into tears and threw herself into my arms. "Who is doing this? Who can hate me this much? I've never done anything to anyone! I can't—"

"Shhh, it's all right." I kissed her hair and rubbed her back as she sobbed into my chest. "We'll figure it out, cricket. Do you want to go over our list of suspects again?"

For the last few weeks, she and I have been going through names of people who may hold a grudge against her or me and trying to decide if they're valid suspects, if they have the means or opportunity to commit the crime, what their grievances could be.

On my list, I had: Ashley Rose, Michelle Robinson, the Armenian kid I beat up, and Charlie Davenport (he's on my secret list)

On her list, she had: Ashley Rose, Michelle Robinson, the Armenian kid I beat up, Manny Garcia (she absolutely refused to add him, but I insisted because he always seems to be popping up whenever she and I are together on school grounds. Of course he is, she countered. He's a security guard!), friends of the Armenian kid I beat up, and Charlie Davenport (she felt terrible for adding him, but she told me he'd been acting weird for the last several months and maybe this was his way of getting her attention or something. She got no argument from me).